La investigación de medicamentos en la facultad de farmacia de Santiago de Compostela (1900-1936): de la creación de una escuela a la interrupción de la guerra civil

LA INVESTIGACIÓN DE MEDICAMENTOS EN LA FACULTAD DE FARMACIA DE SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA (1900-1936): DE LA CREACIÓN DE UNA ESCUELA A LA INTERRUPCIÓN DE LA GUERRA CIVIL. Brasa Arias, Beatriz Dpto. de Farmacia y Tecnología Farmacéutica. Facultad de Farmacia. Universidad de Santiago de Compostela. ESPAÑA Landin, M. The faculty of Pharmacy of Santiago de Compostela (Galicia, Spain) was established by a royal decree in 1857. Nevertheless, research in Pharmacy essentially commenced in the beginning of the 20th century with the new regulations. At that time, the Spanish politics promoted the experimentation at the university laboratories and favoured the stay of teaching staff and graduated students at different European laboratories outside Spain, especially France, contributing to generate a remarkable research group in a “provincial” university. The excessive university centralism at that period in Spain and the characteristics of the faculty building– a 16th century Renaissance palacehindered the research development. However, that generation of researchers trained in the faculty of Santiago laboratories and formed abroad was ready and concerned in the job of consolidating the Galician faculty in a veritable research centre and finishing with the “return professors” period that so much damaged the peripheral universities. The scientific spirit of professors and students, and their great perseverance was imposed and they achieved an estimable status in pharmacy research in Galicia. The facilities were the staff highest priority. A remarkable investment in devices and laboratory material was carried out and researchers start to publish their first original research papers at the local journals as the “Revista de farmacia”, published by the University of Santiago, or specialized national journals as “La farmacia moderna” published in Madrid. In the previous years to the Spanish Civil War (1936) the level reached by the research and development of medications was remarkable allowing, during the war, the transformation of the faculty into a military pharmaceutical laboratory to produce medicines for the army. The 20th century first third was the seed of the scientific prestige that the faculty of Pharmacy of Santiago de Compostela possesses at the present time. B. Brasa thanks the Xunta de Galicia for financial support.